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The Laws of Uneven Development
“Before answering Martin Nicolaus’s critique of ‘Where is America going?’, the origins and intended function of that article should be explained. It is the transcript of a speech given to a seminar of Finnish students at Helsinki, in the framework of a symposium on ‘American imperialism today’. It . . .” read more
The Universal Contradiction
“Messengers of revolution are always welcome. Ernest Mandel’s thesis in ‘Where Is America Going?’ (NLR 54) that a socialist revolution within the United States is on the agenda of the next decade or two is an important corrective to the more gloomy theses being advanced from other quarters. . . .” read more
Ultra-Imperialism
“‘The article below was complete several weeks before the outbreak of the War. It was intended for our number which was to have greeted the planned Congress of the International. Like so much else this Congress has been brought to nothing by the events of the last days. . . .” read more
Where Is America Going?
“Today, profound forces are working to undermine the social and economic equilibrium which has reigned in the United States for more than 25 years, since the big depressions of 1929–32 and of 1937–38. Some of these are forces of an international character, linked with the national liberation struggles . . .” read more
The Unknown Marx
“When he assessed his intellectual career in 1859, Karl Marx condemned to deserved obscurity all of his previous works but four. The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) first set forth the decisive points of his scientific views, although in polemical form, he wrote; and he implied that the same . . .” read more
Monopoly Capital
“The late Professor Baran once remarked to the present writer that he was ‘perfectly satisfied with the current state of orthodox economic theory’ and considered further mathematical explorations of the properties of conventional economic models a waste of time and energy. A little reflection will suggest that this . . .” read more
Capitalism and the Modernizers
“The last twenty years have seen a boom of unprecedented size in the capitalist world. Never before has capitalism grown so fast for so long. This boom has been accompanied by far reaching institutional changes. Big business is becoming increasingly rational and calculating. It is beginning to plan . . .” read more
The Mythology of Affluence
“The practising economist cannot help observing that one book dominates the intelligent layman’s view of contemporary economics. That book is J. K. Galbraith’s The Affluent Society. Thanks to Professor Galbraith, it is now ‘radical’ to contend that, since the 1950’s, Western governments have sacrificed balance and stability to . . .” read more
Piero Sraffa and the Rate of Exploitation
“A casual reader who picked up Piero Sraffa’s Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities might be fascinated by the crystalline style in which it is written, but he would be puzzled to know why it is considered to be a contribution to economic theory of the first . . .” read more
Intellectual Underdevelopment
“Study of economics, as distinct from the study of political economy, is generally thought to be concerned with choice between different uses of scarce resources and the interacting results of choices that are made. Some months ago, Dudley Seers, now Director General in the Ministry of Overseas Development, . . .” read more
Industrialization and Capitalism
“The vision of industrialization and capitalism in the work of Max Weber is questionable in two respects: his view of them as the historical destiny of the West, and as the present destiny of the Germany created by Bismarck. Weber believed them to be the destiny of the . . .” read more
The Conventional Wisdom of Kenneth Galbraith
“A book by Ken Galbraith is an event to arouse high expectations. He is one of the very few writers in economics capable of combining exceptionally penetrating matter with a delicious manner—a quality which is less and less in evidence as teutonic turgidity is taken for scientific soundness, . . .” read more
The Final End of Laissez Faire
“Keynes pronounced his famous discourse on the End of Laissez-faire in 1926. It has been a long time a-dying. To ‘clear from the ground the metaphysical or general principles upon which, from time to time, laissez-faire has been founded’, Keynes declared: ‘It is not a correct deduction from . . .” read more
After Imperialism?
“Michael Barratt Brown’s After Imperialism is undoubtedly one of the most important economic works recently published in English—indeed probably the most important for socialist theory and practice. The author’s purpose is ambitious: to test Lenin’s definition of imperialism against the realities of the British Empire, from the eve . . .” read more
Contemporary Marxist Economics
“Marxist studies are taken more seriously in the French-speaking than the English-speaking world. In France there are a number of scholars who are prepared to use the methods and concepts of Marxism for investigating the development of contemporary society with intelligence, flexibility of approach and complete intellectual integrity . . .” read more
Agronomy and Society
“Historically, as well as logically, “development” precedes “underdevelopment”: the condition of the one was to a large extent the creation of the other. Whatever the importance of continental distinctions in social structure and civilization in the medieval period, it is clear that the steady expansion overseas of post-Renaissance . . .” read more
Imperialism Yesterday and Today
“as mr. macleod makes arrangements for the granting of independence to each of Britain’s African colonies, socialists and radicals are bound to try once more to take their bearings. In the past 15 years almost all of the 1,300 million people who lived in 1945 under . . .” read more